


Tell Me

by Nevi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:45:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3435677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevi/pseuds/Nevi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all stories have happy endings. But not all endings are yet written.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me

**Author's Note:**

> *Contains Inquisition spoilers*

 

“Tell me a story.”

The first time the words are gravel, nearly lost in a landslide of pained moans and fevered dreams. Her mark is consuming her, fissures of green light that opens like a flower across her palm, vines spreading across the dark expanse of her skin and tapering along her jaw. Solas does not know if the words are meant for him, if she even knows he is there but as he uses his magic to calm the mark, to complement the poultices the alchemist makes, he does tell a story. It’s the story of a lone wanderer. A wanderer who travels to the farthest corners of the world seeking the hidden and the lost.   The story of a wanderer who travels for so long he’s forgotten his way home.

*  
*

“Tell me a story?” She asks smiling unguarded as she takes a seat beside him. The tavern has emptied in the last hour, his reading candle one of the few lights keeping the shadows at bay. He steals a moment to study her face, to read the vallaslin up on it and the questions her eyes ask that her tongue does not.

He closes his book. “What do you wish to hear?”

She pauses, watching her fingers as they scratch aimless at the table top. “Tell me of old ruins.”

He does not know what the story is that she looks for, but he tells her of Barindur; a city swept away by disaster and time. Of people who in their last moments called out to a god that was not there, their horror immortalized in the ashen statues left behind.

*  
*

“Tell me a story.” She doesn’t so much ask as demand, sweat dripping from her brow. He knows this time what she is looking for; a distraction.   The day had been long, the journey hard. He feels it as deeply as any of the others, and he thinks maybe he could use the distraction too.   So as she settles beside him at the campfire and cleans the blood and sweat and tears of the day from her gear he tells her an old elven tale.

He is rewarded with a smile and a nod when he begins. Her fingers scraping the leather between her hands.

“This one has always been my favorite.” She tells him.

He doesn’t tell her it’s his favorite too.

*  
*

“Tell me a story?” Her lips glisten with honey wine, cheeks flushed in the dim candle light. Grin coy as she trails a finger along the underside of his jaw.

He laughs. It feels like ages since he’s laughed and maybe it’s the honey wine or the conversation, or the company but it feels good to just… laugh.

So he tells her a story against her lips, words rolling along his tongue and onto hers, fingers tangled in her hair. And he knows this is a mistake but he doesn’t care. This is a story of a wanderer who finds a piece of home in a place he wasn’t looking.

*  
*

She’s unconscious the next time he tells her a story. An unexpected altercation with a dragon that has left her broken but breathing. He holds her hand, thumb brushing against the threads of knitting flesh.

It has been a long time since he has felt true fear and grief, a long time since it had caught him with its sharp teeth and strong jaws.

And in the quiet sorrow he tells her a story. It’s a tale about a wolf and a magic orb.

She won’t hear this one.

*  
*

“Tell me a story.” She begs, hips bucking to meet his tongue. He rolls the words along her clit, along the plains of skin that taste of salt and lyrium, of smoke and battle. This story is a story of want, of hopeless need and an abandonment of sense. And when he buries himself in her he wonders if it can also be a story of redemption. 

*  
*

“Tell me a story?” she whispers. Hot breath against cold skin as she curls around him, pressing close for warmth in the darkness of the tent. The rain has been falling all day soaking the cold into his bones and when he pulls her close it is not only for her comfort. He runs slender fingers through her hair and tells her a story about a wolf who fell in love with a Halla.

She tells him that she does not know this one, but sleep takes her before he finishes. He kisses her brow and lets the steady rhythm of her breath guide him into dream.

The ending of this story drawing near.

She will know it soon.

*  
*

“Tell me…Tell me…” Her eyes are wet and she’s pushing him, beating her fists against his chest and he can’t hold her – can’t tell her everything will be okay. This story doesn’t have a happy ending.   He turns his gaze as she falls, hands clenching into fists, nails digging into palms to stop themselves from reaching out.

Ma’Vhenan he called her. His heart is hers, will always be hers and when he walks away he leaves it with her so that she will know. The hollowness in his chest: a wound for him to bear.

“Benal’Abelas, Benal’Vhenan.” She cries into the space he no longer occupies.

He’s always known how this story would end: with broken promises and broken hearts.

*  
*

“Tell me a story.” He whispers into the fade.

There is no answer here, the silence stifling. The space is as empty as it has always been.

A broken throne that no god occupies lays before him.

A reminder of a story that is not yet complete.


End file.
